Decode
by Magery
Summary: Sometimes, the only word left to say is goodbye.


_It's okay to be lied to, as long as it's only by you._

* * *

The cell was silent. One could say it was as quiet as the grave, and perhaps that would be a fitting comparison, for our two actors are already dead. Oh, one may be standing regally on the other side of the bars, and the other may be hunched against the wall, but they are dead nonetheless. Not on the outside – no, that is not the game they play, not now. That game is over, and one of them has won; the game they play now is one of liars, of broken hearts, masks and the irony of promises.

Watch now as the first act begins, as they assume their respective roles in their futile courtship; the prince and the princess, only in this tale… in this tale there are no happy endings.

"Hello, Kallen." His voice is soft, and oh so very tired.

Her silence is the silence of ashes; the ashes of everything that was once between them. But there is no phoenix rising from the melancholy dust, for this is no fairy tale. It's the sort of tale that where fate and tragedy go hand in hand like the lovers these two can never be.

Time does not pass. Time cannot pass if it is not observed, and the only thing these two observe is each other. He watches her with the eyes of a dead man, of someone who has surrendered to oblivion long ago. She watches him in her mind, imagines him how he used to be, for to see him now would break her. She knows she is already breaking; little does she realize that in this, and perhaps this alone, she is just like him. The fire may be sputtering, flickering, _dying_, but the ice has long since shattered – all that holds him together now is her. Not her as she is now, but her as she will be in the future.

Safe.

Free.

_Alive._

He speaks again; he's recovered from seeing her, and there is no trace of anything in his voice but the Emperor he's pretending to be. No tears, no tenderness, no love, for what is love good for except for crying yourself to sleep at night?

"Tell me, Kallen, what is it you want from me?" His voice is like ice; ice that is slowly breaking, each word a crack that sends a fissure coursing through his masks.

She does not answer, not for a long time, but both of them do not recognize the wait. They recognize only each other, for that is how it has always been, and how it always will be. Her voice finally answers, a halting flame that dies almost as soon as it flickers to life.

"The truth."

There are oh so many things he would give to her, but that can never be one of them. He and the truth cannot coexist; neither can live whilst the other survives. And you cannot kill truth, so thus he will kill himself; for a dead man, death comes almost too easily. His answer is just another sharp thrust into his own heart – he won't recognize the pain, not yet, but that doesn't mean it's not there.

"Was it not you who told me I should lie? Lie and lie to the bitter end?"

"Not… not like this." She does not know it yet, but in the end it will be exactly as she wanted it to be. Zero will grant the world its freedom, as his last, great miracle. But the Zero she'll get isn't the Zero she wants; she should be used to it by now, but he will disappoint her once again.

This time, it is his turn to be silent. How did they get here? They used to know one another so well, and yet now they are nothing but strangers. But he thinks he might understand, deep in the depths of his soul. Lelouch vi Britannia could have had Kallen Stadtfeld, just as Zero could have had Q1, as Lelouch Lamperouge could have had Kallen Kozuki. But they are not simple people – they cannot simply adopt one façade and make it real. The masque, the grand ball of secrets, of false truths and the memory of lies requires more than one face, and the masque is all they have, for it is only in the masque that they can see one another for who they truly are.

The irony does not escape him, not this time.

She raises her head, meeting his eyes for the first time. She tells herself that they're the eyes of a demon, not his eyes, that they won't break her because they're not _his_, but it doesn't work. They're his eyes, and they're not the eyes of a demon. She can see the truth hiding in them; hear the truth hanging on his tongue, the truth he twists so it sounds almost like a lie. Somehow, she can see, and somehow she _understands_. But still she has to ask.

"Why?" Her voice is quiet, but not the quiet it was before. Not the quiet of breaking, for his eyes have already broken her. It's the quiet of the funeral; the sort of softness you can only ever associate with goodbye.

"Why not?" His response is flippant, but the answer is in his eyes, in everything he cannot say. Why? Because there's nobody else, not any more. Because it's time for their dues to be paid, for their debts to be settled once and for all. Because the only saviour the world will ever accept is the saviour it never knew. And when he looks into those sapphire pools, he can see she knows. How she does is not a question he can answer; perhaps because of everything they've shared, because of the connection they forged out of everything they couldn't have. Or maybe it's just because he wants her to know, because out of all the things he's done, the one thing he cannot take to his death is her hatred.

He asks her the same question he did before, but this time she has an answer. It's not her answer, no; her answer can only be expressed by her eyes, the eyes that resemble ice and yet contain only fire. This time her answer is the the answer he deserves, because at least this way he might die happy.

"What do you want from me, Kallen?"

"Peace."

It's the first time she's seen him smile in a long time.

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry it had to be like this." They speak as one, but it is the last time they will be together.

He turns to walk away; what he came here to do is done. Not that he knew what he came here for; the game they play is not one for logic, or purpose. But nonetheless, he has accomplished something, and so he takes his leave. The next time she'll see him is the day he'll die, and by then it will be far too late. _But at least_, she thinks as a solitary tear trickles slowly down her cheek, _at least he'll have kept his promise_, _to lie and lie until the bitter end._

"Goodbye…" her voice breaks, but it doesn't matter, because she's already broken.

"Goodbye, Zero."

"Goodbye, Kallen."

Sometimes, the only word left to say is goodbye.

* * *

The song this fic is somewhat drawn from is Decode by Paramore. I suggest you go and listen to it now that you've read this. The quote at the top of the page is two lines from Bic Runga's Honest Goodbyes; another good song.

Thanks to topears for helping to fix a few niggling problems.

Anyway, this is my take on the 'jail scene' that crops up all over the place. The plot may not be entirely original, but then again in this fic the plot is not important - what's important are Lelouch and Kallen, and everything that never was. Consider it my dedication to that which should have been; hooray for depressive moods coupled with boredom?

I have not yet started writing the next chapter of Breath of Life yet, this came out instead. I can't write Breath of Life while I'm feeling sad, it's supposed to be a relatively happy fic =P

That's about it from me; I don't know if this will get any reviews considering its length and one-shot status, although I would like people to tell me whether I can write a more depressed mood well or not. Being able to manage variation is important to me as a writer, especially if I ever plan to follow through on the little thing in my mind that tells me I should become an author proper =P

Until next time,

Magery


End file.
